On May 10, 2016 I had the pleasure of attending the second Congressional Briefing on Surgical Care and the Global Need, hosted by ReSurge International and the G4 Alliance. It was my first experience on Capitol Hill and it was a privilege to participate in this informative event. The briefing called on congressional staffers, NGOs and other government representatives to understand the elevated need for surgical care and the impact that access to surgical care can have on the lives of people in low- and middle-income countries. Experts in the field formed a panel that was moderated by Dr. Thomas Novotny, the deputy assistant secretary for health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The panel’s distinguished speakers included Dr. Ross "Rusty" Segan, Chief Medical Officer, Global Orthopedics & Global Surgery, Johnson & Johnson and Dr. Mark Shrime, research director, Program in Global Surgery & Social Change at Harvard Medical School and member of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery.

Across the panel, speakers focused on the cost-effectiveness and the cross-cutting impacts of investing in surgical care. For instance, it was reported that 18 million people die each year due to surgically treatable conditions. Simple surgeries can treat a wide range of conditions and diseases, ranging from maternal and child health, trauma, prevention of HIV/AIDS, and even non-communicable conditions like cancer and heart disease. The financial strain of not investing in this gap could result in a $12.3 trillion loss in GDP by 2030 for low-and-middle-income countries.

ReSurge's own Surgical Outreach Director in Nepal, Dr. Kiran Nakarmi, offered a personal and moving description of how the ongoing need for surgical care in his country intensified after the earthquake one year ago. Thanks to prior investments and a commitment to training made by ReSurge, he was able to provide life-saving procedures on earthquake victims who were in dire need of reconstructive surgery. Furthermore, physical and occupational therapists previously trained by ReSurge were available to provide post-surgical care. Dr. Nakarmi and his team continue to treat those whose wounds have not healed properly.

Together, these partners are poised to improve the landscape of global health. ReSurge's history and model for building surgical capacity are certain to play a critical role in in this growth.

Eileen Sheldon currently sits on ReSurge International’s Board of Directors. With a professional background in research and planning, Eileen remains committed to volunteer work. In the past, her dedication to service has led her to Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles, where she trained and guided blind runners through various races. In October 2013, Eileen’s passion brought her to Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh. Since that time, Eileen has continued playing an active role in supporting ReSurge’s mission to provide reconstructive surgery for people in the developing world.

In collaboration with the Congressional Global Health Caucus, ReSurge International and the Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma and Anesthesia Care (The G4 Alliance) will host a Congressional Briefing on Surgical Care and the Global Need at 2 p.m., Tuesday, May 10, in Washington, DC.

To support our mission to build surgical capacity and provide reconstructive surgical care for those in need, ReSurge works to raise the profile of surgical care as a critical component of global health and advocates to the U.S. government and in the UN system for greater access to care.

Dr. Kiran Nakarmi, ReSurge Nepal's surgical outreach director, will join speakers from the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, Johnson & Johnson, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and others on Capitol Hill. They will share the latest findings on the global impact of this public health issue, as well as cost-effective strategies for strengthening health systems and increasing access to surgical care to those in low-income countries.

Around the world, 5 billion people do not have access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthesia care, with only 6% of all procedures benefiting the world’s poorest third. Yet, surgical care, including safe anesthesia, obstetric and trauma care, is a cross-cutting, cost-effective public health intervention to enhance health, productivity and economic development – and is essential to health systems strengthening.

Surgical conditions represent nearly a third of the global burden of disease. The Lancet Commission estimates that in 2010 alone, there were nearly 17 million surgically preventable deaths. The price of closing this global gap is estimated around $350 billion in low-income countries over the next 15 years. However, the cost of not investing in surgical care is projected to result in GDP losses as high as $12.3 trillion dollars in low-income countries. Global surgical care and anesthesia disparities have a far-reaching impact, affecting billions across all socioeconomic and demographic strata.

You can help advocate for safe surgical care for the 5 billion people in the world who lack access to timely, safe and affordable care. Here are a couple of ways to help today:

Contact your U.S. Representative. Please let him/her know that global surgical care is important to you and that you would appreciate it if a member of the representative's staff could attend. (A sample note follows at the end of this blog.)

ReSurge appreciates your advocacy on behalf of those in need of surgical care. If you have any questions or want to get more involved, please contact Sara Anderson, ReSurge’s senior advisor for advocacy and innovation, at sara@resurge.org.

Sample Email to Send to Your Congressional Representative:

Dear Representative ____:

Thank you for representing me and my community in the _(#)_ Congressional District of _(state)___. I am a (medical volunteer/supporter) of ReSurge International, which builds surgical capacity and provides reconstructive surgical care in developing countries. I’ve seen first-hand how access to surgical care saves lives and reduces disabilities.

Increasing access to essential surgical care in low-income countries is important to me. It is a cross-cutting, cost-effective public health intervention to enhance health, productivity and economic development – and is essential to health systems strengthening.

To learn more about this critical issue, I would appreciate it if a member of your staff could attend a Congressional Briefing on Surgical Care and the Global Need at 2pm, May 10, in the Gold Room, RHOB. To RSVP, please click here.

There were also patients who received surgical care. They include Juan, a 26-year-old who was injured when he jumped into a fight to protect a woman from being attacked by her ex-boyfriend. Juan suffered cuts on both hands, and the forearm muscle that enables movement of his right hand was nearly severed. He also had limited motion and sensation in his left hand.

Surgeons were able to repair the forearm muscle. We hope the procedure will eventually lead to Juan regaining full use of his hand. The ReSurge team put Juan in a specialized plastic splint that provided support but also a minimum level of flexibility. Doctors expect him to remain hospitalized until his left hand is stable.

ReSurge is grateful to our volunteer educators, the local medical professionals and our partnership with Long Island Plastic Surgical Group, which helps sponsor our work in Ecuador.

03/09/2016

ReSurge surgical volunteers from the United States and Ecuador are in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam providing reconstructive surgical care and training. ReSurge began working in Vietnam in 1990 and has performed surgeries for nearly 6,500 Vietnamese. Over the course of the next two weeks, another 60 patients will receive the surgical care they need to lead more productive lives.

Earlier this week, our surgical team evaluated more than 100 patients. One of the first patients seen was Nhi, age 11 from Nha Trang. She arrived at the hospital at 3am in hopes that ReSurge will repair her thumb and return her hand function. A doctor near her home improperly sutured her thumb and caused damage. ReSurge will work to correct that this week.

Not all patients were as lucky, as they were not healthy enough for surgery. The little boy pictured below was too anemic to undergo surgery now. Hopefully, his iron levels will be better in June when ReSurge returns and he will be scheduled for surgery then.

We will bring you more stories of our patients and of the care they receive in the upcoming weeks.

02/20/2016

All photos, including this selfie, are by ReSurge volunteer Dr. Deborah Rusy. This blog can also be read on Adobe Slate.

ReSurge provides advanced surgical training for medical professionals in developing countries to increase the accessibility of safe surgical care and to help address local surgical workforce challenges. This week, three ReSurge visiting educators taught complex cleft care and other craniofacial procedures at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare.

ReSurge board member Dr. Richard Redett and Dr. Damon Cooney, both plastic surgeons and professors at the John Hopkins School of Medicine, and Dr. Deborah Rusy, anesthesiologist and faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, provided hands-on training to local doctors and residents who are among the first participants in Zimbabwe’s plastic surgery program.

This is ReSurge’s third time teaching at the University of Zimbabwe and our first in cleft and craniofacial training in Harare. By providing this training, local surgeons will soon be able to treat a wider range of patients, including those with bilateral clefts, fistulas, wide clefts and other complex cases.

In 2015, Dr. Godfrey Ignatius Muguti, University of Zimbabwe’s department of surgery professorial chair and founder of the plastic surgery program, partnered with ReSurge to link some of the world’s leading experts as visiting educators with his young surgeons.

“You will be pleased to know that the first two residents from our plastic surgery training program passed their final FCS (plastic surgery) examinations of the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSESCA) in December,” said Dr. Muguti. “The continued visits from your organization will help these young plastic surgeons consolidate their skills while at the same time supporting the training of more residents in our young program.”

ReSurge is grateful to Dr. Muguti for this opportunity to partner with him to build surgical capacity in Zimbabwe, currently a country of 14 million people and only four plastic surgeons. We are also thankful to our surgical volunteers Drs. Cooney, Redett and Rusy –and to Airlink and South African Airways, which donated the airfares for our visiting educators.

Airlink is a 24/7 disaster and humanitarian response organization that links airlines with vetted nonprofits. Because of Airlink’s work and the donation from South African Airways, ReSurge will be able to send more faculty to train the next generation of reconstructive plastic surgeons.

02/02/2016

February 1-7, 2016 is National Burn Awareness Week, and in conjunction with this week of observation, ReSurge has created a suite of informative infographics about the global burns crisis that we are asking people to like and share on social media.

Every day this week, we will post a new infographic like the one above here on our blog and on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

Please help us spread the word about the neglected burns crisis by liking and sharing these graphics with your friends on social media. You can also download the infographics at http://tinyurl.com/ReSurgeBurnInfographics.

Severe burns around the world are a silent emergency, but solutions exist. Burns can easily be prevented and treated through simple surgery that corrects disabling injuries and saves countless lives.

01/06/2016

Uma is a young woman who lives outside Dehradun, India. She used to suffer from epileptic seizures. During one of those attacks, she fell on a fire and suffered severe burns to her right hand. As a result, her husband and his family shunned her and took away her daughter.

Since the accident, ReSurge International surgical outreach partners, "Drs. Yogi and Kush Aeron have looked after me like a member of the family. Dr. Yogi wants to lengthen my fingers, to stretch what is already there". Uma says, "Once the surgery is done, I want to go back to my in-laws and show them that I am not deformed. Above all else, I want to get my daughter back. If it is in my karma, I will show the world that I am worthy." We know she is already worthy and should be reunited with her daughter. Thanks to generous support from the Syde Hurdus Foundation, Uma will receive the surgery she hopes for.

Uma is just one of more than 3,000 patients we hope to help in the year ahead. Our ability to do this depends on the support we receive from the community - from people like you. Please donate today at www.resurge.org/donate.

ReSurge is enormously grateful to RealSelf for sponsoring our recent Surgical Team Trip to India and for sharing Uma's story.

12/25/2015

Five year’s ago today, a son born on Christmas day in Kitwe, Zambia, was named Emmanuel. The fourth child of a miner in the Copperbelt, his parents thought him perfect and joyfully called him Emmanuel, in honor of the Christian scriptures. They did notice his tiny hand with webbed middle fingers, but those little fingers still wrapped around theirs and they were in love.

Emmanuel was born with syndactyly, the condition of having some or all of the fingers or toes wholly or partly united. As he grew, he was able to use his hands to eat and hold a pencil, as his brother and sisters had, and therefore, his parents did not think too much about it when he was a toddler.

However, when Emmanuel began school in January, that changed. The other children ostracized him. He told us how he always had to eat his lunch alone; no one would sit with him. This made Emmanuel very sad. His teachers told his parents that Emmanuel hid his hands at school, was reluctant to speak and had also noticed how the other children reacted to him.

Emmanuel’s parents took action, but being economically poor in the mining region of Zambia, they did not know what to do at first. They investigated and finally heard of Dr. Goran Jovic, ReSurge’s surgical outreach director and only plastic surgeon in Zambia, a country of 13 million people.

When we met Emmanuel and his mother in Lusaka earlier this month, they had traveled more than 200 miles to receive the free surgery he needed. Later that week, Dr. Jovic performed his surgery and Emmanuel was able to go home to Kitwe a few days later. Soon, his hand will be healed. Emmanuel will be able to go back to school with a hand like his classmates and will have even more function with all of his fingers working and moving. We are thankful to the S.L.. Gimbel Foundation for making his surgery possible.

We wish Emmanuel a very happy birthday today. And to his parents, Dr. Jovic and his family, and all those who celebrate Christmas, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas, wrapped in the joy of family and friends.

12/12/2015

ReSurge International and nearly 60 organizations from around the world gathered together in Blantyre, Malawi last week to strategize how best to dramatically increase access to surgical care in developing countries. (Currently, 5 billion people lack access to safe, affordable surgical care and anesthesia when needed.) We are all part of the G4 Alliance, a coalition advocating for the neglected surgical patient and building greater public health priority for surgical care as part of universal health coverage.

ReSurge, a founding G4 member and leader in the alliance, joined members from the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, the Royal College of Surgeons-Ireland, Vanderbilt, Harvard, COSECSA (College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa), Jhpiego and dozens of other NGOs, academic institutions and professional medical societies.

We met for two days discussing how to increase political will, develop international standards and a surgical case data platform, and track global training activities and partnerships. Moreover, we adopted the draft unifying target of “Safe Surgical Care for 80 percent of the World by 2030” and will solicit feedback on this target until our next board meeting at the World Health Organization in May.

The year 2015 truly has been an historic year for global surgery. Surgical care is finally on the global public health agenda. (See below for the key achievements.)

ReSurge has long realized that surgical care is a cross-cutting, cost-effective public health intervention to enhance health, productivity and economic development. We see its benefits in action every day as we build surgical capacity, provide reconstructive surgery and truly transform lives in developing countries. Now, other leaders around the world are uniting in a common vision to address the surgical inequities and promote universal access to care.

As World Bank President Dr. Jim Kim said, “surgical care is an indivisible, indispensible part of health care.” ReSurge is proud to be part of this new global movement for safe surgical care. We celebrate the 2015 achievements on Universal Health Coverage Day, December 12, because every patient deserves access to safe surgery.

Strengthening surgical care as part of global development strategies represents a profound shift in addressing the burden of disease and heralds an era of transformational change in health. This is an opportune time to take advantage of this momentum. We hope you will join us. To learn more or join the movement, please contact Sara Anderson, chief advocacy officer, at sara@resurge.org.

12/08/2015

A ReSurge volunteer places an ID bracelet on a burn patient before surgery.

In Dehradun, India, ReSurge medical volunteers are on the ground, working with our year-round Indian team and providing needed surgical care for burn survivors and others in need of reconstructive plastic surgery. RealSelf, one of ReSurge’s corporate partners, is a generous supporter and made possible this trip to bring life-changing care to hundreds of patients.

More than 500 patients and family members were waiting to be examined, and hopefully scheduled for treatment, when the team arrived on clinic day. One patient was three-year-old Priyanshi. (See photo below of Priyanshi on her mother's lap.)

Priyanshi lives with her family in the mountains above Dehradun. She suffered severe burns when she was just nine months old after she rolled over while sleeping and her foot went into the fire that was used to keep the house warm. Upon hearing her daughter’s piercing screams, her mother rushed into the room and doused the flames with water.

Priyanshi’s parents then walked more than eight miles to catch a bus to get her to the nearest hospital. After administering basic first aid, the doctor said he could not do any more for her and suggested that they take her to the nearest city (Dehradun) for care. Priyanshi and her parents are now hopeful that Dr. Kush Aeron, ReSurge Surgical Outreach director in Dehradun, and the surgical team can help to reconstruct her foot so that she can walk, run and play like her friends.

Burns like Priyanshi’s are common in India where many families still heat and cook over open fires. (See photo below of a family cooking over an open fire in their home outside Dehradun.)

Current estimates are that 7 million people sustain burns in the country every year and there are 10 deaths per 100,000 people. Nearly 300,000 are left with debilitating burn scars. Without surgery, these injuries could result in a lifetime of despair. To help reduce suffering and disabilities, ReSurge established four year-round Surgical Outreach Programs in India, where burns are the 12th leading cause of premature death and disability for women. Volunteer surgical teams are still deployed because of the tremendous need for care and training.

ReSurge is enormously grateful to RealSelf for its support of this team trip. The company sponsored a similar trip to Vietnam last year and produced an inspiring video. Click here to watch it.

Last week, ReSurge visiting educators traveled to Bahia, Ecuador to help build the surgical capacity there. The ReSurge Global Training Program team of four taught alongside ReSurge surgical outreach director in Bahia Dr. Pablo Salamea, ReSurge country director Dr. Jorge Palacios, and his foundation, Rostros Felices.

ReSurge medical volunteers who trained the Ecuadorian team included: Dr. George Gregory, ReSurge anesthesia director; Dr. Laurence Glickman, plastic surgeon with the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group; and PACU nurses Tina Cerruti and Kim Yates. The surgeons taught general reconstructive surgical techniques; the nurses taught how to prep/assist in the OR and recovery care in the PACU.

This trip was part of the ReSurge Global Training Program (RGTP), a multi-year program to train the next generation of humanitarian surgical teams and to expand access to sustainable reconstructive surgical care in developing countries. Dr. Jim Chang, ReSurge's consulting medical officer and Stanford's chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery, is leading the RGTP and has established a world-class faculty of leading experts from around the globe to contribute to the program.

ReSurge is grateful to the Long Island Plastic Surgical Group (LIPSG) for sponsoring this trip, as part of its 10-year partnership with ReSurge, to help transform lives by restoring the health and dreams of those with deformities and injuries repairable through surgery. LIPSG is supporting the ReSurge / Long Island Plastic Surgical Outreach Program in Ecuador, where ReSurge’s local team of physicians provides surgical care year-round for clefts and disabling burn injuries. LIPSG physicians will also work with ReSurge to help transform lives by not only contributing financially, but by providing surgeons, like Dr. Glickman, and medical staff for surgical team trips and visiting educator trips to Ecuador.

ReSurge is also grateful to Stuart Coulson, from Stanford University's Design for Extreme Affordability, who joined the team researching 2016 ReSurge/Extreme projects and who took these photos.

11/18/2015

Last month, three members of the ReSurge Global Training Program Faculty from Stanford University traveled to Harare, Zimbabwe to provide specialty training for hand surgery.

In the developing world, the ability to use one’s hands is crucial—so many of those living in poverty use their hands on farms and in factories. Injuries to and congenital anomalies of the hands often severely limit an individual’s ability to contribute to society. Therefore, restoring hand functionality and training in hand surgery are among the most important aspects of ReSurge’s work in the developing world, as it renews one’s ability to provide for one’s self and family.

Drs. Vincent Hentz, Garet Comer and Ryan Derby, the ReSurge volunteer faculty members from Stanford, provided lectures and one-on-one surgical training in thumb duplication, finger amputations, thumb hypoplasia and other hand surgery techniques. It was our second training session this year at the University of Zimbabwe, Parirenyatwa Hospital. Local trainees included Drs. Kevin Nduku, Eugene Chikanya, and Adrian Karangura, all of whom also had been trained in March 2015 by ReSurge.

“One case that stood out was a 6-month-old with a bilateral radial longitudinal deficiency with complete thumb hypoplasia. We performed a wrist centralization on one side to improve the deformity and allow for a lateral procedure to make the index into a thumb,” wrote Dr. Comer, who performed the surgery with Dr. Nduku.

He continued, “After surgery, we shared photos of the surgical result with the mother and father [photos below]. The mom wrote us this: ’Thank you for the photos and the wonderful work that your team did, it is much appreciated. Our prayer since giving birth to baby Nathan was that he would have a chance to hold and do a lot of things that any other person is able to. 6 months later with joyful tears and grateful hearts we can say, because of you it is now possible. Thank you, thank you, thank you.’”

The little boy’s mother was grateful that her baby now would have a chance at a normal, productive life with a better working hand. By training local doctors in such important procedures, ReSurge is working to build sustainable surgical capacity year-round –and making a lasting impact on families like baby Nathan’s.

11/16/2015

Sashina, age 2, returned to see Dr. Kiran Nakarmi, ReSurge surgical outreach director in Nepal, this week. A month ago, he repaired her cleft palate so that she could learn to speak well and prevent respiratory and ear infections often increased by having a cleft palate. A cleft palate is a congenital anomaly, found when of one or both sides of the roof of the mouth fail to fuse.

When she saw Dr. Nakarmi, Sashina greeted him with a sweet hand gesture of gratitude and peace. “I can't describe how I felt to see her hands coming together to greet me,” said Dr. Nakami. “Thanks to ReSurge International for providing free surgery to many children like her.”

And we in turn return the thanks to Dr. Nakarmi, his team in Kathmandu and all of the parents and patients like Sashina who entrust us with their care.

11/02/2015

Earlier this fall, Jeffrey Davis, professional photographer and ReSurge volunteer, traveled with ReSurge’s Dr. Goran Jovic, to Chitokoloki village in Zambia. Here are some of his images and thoughts from the first clinic day.

As the only reconstructive plastic surgeon in Zambia, ReSurge Outreach Director Dr. Goran Jovic pilots a small plane and travels to about 12 remote sites throughout the country to provide surgery.

At Chitokoloki and other sites around the country, Goran has provided roughly 12,000 surgeries through more than 20 years of serving as the only reconstructive plastic surgeon in Zambia focusing on this type of work. For the last 15 years, Goran has been ReSurge’s surgical outreach director for Zambia, supporting his work with training, financial support, quality-assurance and a global network of other humanitarian reconstructive surgeons working in developing countries.

ReSurge is proud to partner with Dr. Jovic and with Jeffrey Davis, who has given his time and talents to ReSurge in Bangladesh, Tanzania and Zambia.

10/26/2015

Former ReSurge President and CEO Susan W. Hayes delivering her acceptance speech on behalf of the more than 57,000 patients who received surgical care during her tenure. To view her full speech, go to 3:55 at this link.

Former ReSurge CEO Susan W. Hayes received the William Lazier Leadership Award at the Transformations Gala on October 10, where more than 400 guests came to celebrate her, ReSurge's next generation of reconstructive surgical teams, supporters, medical volunteers and our patients.

Every evening before leaving work, Susan would pause and take a reflective look at the photographic portraits of past patients filling the walls of ReSurge. She would remember the challenges they faced being disabled or disfigured in a developing country and how one simple surgery could dramatically improve the trajectory of their lives. Looking at their portraits gave her perspective, inspiration and motivation. For Susan, her work was always about the patients.

During her tenure as president and CEO of ReSurge, more than 57,000 patients from around the world received nearly 80,000 life-changing surgeries. She sent more than 4,500 medical volunteers overseas to provide surgical care and teach local surgical teams, so that care would be available now and for generations to come. Susan helped raise more than $60 million to fund the care and helped produce an Academy-Award winning documentary about ReSurge, which in turn brought prestige and strong partnerships with the Ronald McDonald House Charities, the Smile Train and so many others.

In 1969, ReSurge, then Interplast, was the pioneer in providing reconstructive surgery to the poor in developing countries. When Susan began in 1996, she continued to keep the organization in the vanguard and helped steer ReSurge to a new model of delivering surgical care -- to increase availability where and when it was needed most. She led our evolution to train and empower developing world surgical teams to provide year-round access for patients in need. This delivery model has proven to be the most efficient and cost-effective way to deliver care.

On behalf of the next generation and the tens of thousands of patients whose courage and transformations inspired her everyday, ReSurge honored Susan W. Hayes with the William C. Lazier Leadership Award.

Please view this 3-minute video about Susan's legacy in the words of: Sandy Alderson, former ReSurge board chair and general manager of the New York Mets; George Schell, former ReSurge board member and chief marketing counsel, The Coca-Cola Company; and Sheila Wolfson, ReSurge volunteer and former board member.

The late William C. Lazier was one of the nation’s foremost scholars of organizational behavior, and co-author of the business classic, “Beyond Entrepreneurship.” Professor Lazier was chair of Interplast’s board of directors when Susan began her tenure in 1996 and together they helped the organization become a leader in international development within the field of reconstructive surgery.